


Between The Oceans And The Sea

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Series: Unnamed Sharpe series [1]
Category: Sharpe (TV), Sharpe - Bernard Cornwell
Genre: AU, April Showers Challenge 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-05
Updated: 2003-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:35:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He called to me, from between the oceans and the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between The Oceans And The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> AU, from any book after Sharpe becomes a major until Regiment.

The men of the South Essex feared and pitied their senior Sergeant. Harper used to be one of the lads, free with music, and laughter and song. But no more. Not since his officer had died.

Harper had been twenty-four when Sharpe had given him the stripes. He was coming on thirty-three when Sharpe was lost. 'Lost' was how the men put it around him. Otherwise, the Major was dead. But Patrick Harper, with his Irish stubborness, refused to believe so.

"He's always gotten out before, so he has. Why would the Father want anything different with him now?" Harper always said, upon being asked. But no one asked. No one had the heart to see the large man cry.

But new recruits never knew better, and so when the aging Sergeant approached one of them and demanded to know why his flintlock was missing, adding his usual "What would the Major say?", the recruit answered the only way he knew how. "We don't have a major, Sarge."

The Rifles always paraded in a protective guard around their own, and Harris was the first one to reach Harper after his fist flew. It took four of them to wrestle Harper to the ground, while the rest wisely informed the recruits never to say such things again. None of them thought it expedient to inform Captain Price. Price turned a blind eye to Harper's conviction, just as Sharpe had Price's tendency to overdrink.

"It's perfectly shameful," Harper was saying to the Riflemen who had calmed him down, ignoring the fact that they had had to subdue him by force to stop him from assault charges. "What would the major say?"

But the major could not say anything, for Sharpe had been lost those long five years, and none could say where he dwelt. Heaven said his friends, and Hell as well, but he would never be found again on this earth.


End file.
